We conducted the baseline survey in Narayanpura village, a potters’ village in Bangalore District.
The families I interviewed had both Kannada speaking as well as English speaking – I needed the help of an interpreter to start the survey for me in the first house as that house was a kannada speaking household. The fact that the forms were in Kannada were a great help – and wherever they were confused, I would look up the equivalent question in the English forms and help them using a mixture of English, Hindi, one or two words in Kannada and sign language. Usually the daughter of the family filled up the form in the presence of the elders, who were busy working or with the help of the interpreter i filed up the form while they worked and answered my questions. They offered refreshments to us while filling up our forms.
The families I interviewed had both Kannada speaking as well as English speaking – I needed the help of an interpreter to start the survey for me in the first house as that house was a kannada speaking household. The fact that the forms were in Kannada were a great help – and wherever they were confused, I would look up the equivalent question in the English forms and help them using a mixture of English, Hindi, one or two words in Kannada and sign language. Usually the daughter of the family filled up the form in the presence of the elders, who were busy working or with the help of the interpreter i filed up the form while they worked and answered my questions. They offered refreshments to us while filling up our forms.
The form was a baseline survey created by the government to study potential craft and agricultural centres and production units in the country. The information a conducted survey would provide included economic status, monetary grants, loans and debts, family-related information, craft/agricultural related information, earnings and expenditure, living conditions, culture information, information about accessibility and demographic information.
And from this information, information about where and how this particular craft needs help – in terms of money, market, consumption, accessibility, time, workers, etc. would emerge.
Much of the form was left unfilled by the families I interviewed since they did not have any farming activities – which usually supplement craft villages. Surprisingly enough they didn't resort to livestock or agriculture as their second source of income.
It was interesting to note how all of the older generation did not complete their basic information but how they were trying to let their children complete theirs. They were very proud of their daughter who was filling the forms.
The women in the village were very much included in the craft. Although they did not sit on the wheel, they would help with carrying, mixing, preparing the clay as also making small toys and ornaments from them. Besides this, when I was conducting the survey, they were engrossed in kitchen work.
The forms took away a lot of the familiarity and casualness of the conversations we had so far been having in our conversations with the five business-owners, I also felt strange asking them so many personal questions using the form without actually knowing anything about them or having had a conversation with them before. It made everything sort of formal and ritualistic. Then again, they took time to fill up - during which we observed the rest of the family at work. And we were offered refreshments and made to feel like guests. The information we got out of the surveys was a different kind of information - which included an overall study of the village.
No comments:
Post a Comment